But she is supposed to have held her power for so many ages and to have displayed so much skill in the use of it, that the supposition of her having once received it from the Creator is regarded rather as a speculative theory, than as a question of any practical importance.. But the admission that nature has for many ages held and wielded the power which we see manifested in the natural world, is sufficient to constitute her the real if not the acknowledged object of worship. Being regarded as the repository of all manifested power, she becomes the object of adoration and worship. And though the existence of the Divine Being or Great First Cause may not be theoretically denied, yet there ceases to be any clear and distinct recognition of him as a personal Deity. He is lost sight of in the darkness of nature and is no longer an object of love and worship.
The tendency thus to go from theoretical error to practical atheism is by no means an imaginary danger, but is an alarming evil already most extensively realized. If any special proof of this assertion is demanded it may be found in the great popularity of certain doctrines called "the science of spirituality," "the divine revelations of nature," and other similar names. The design of these doctrines, as the reader undoubtedly knows, is, to refer all spiritual phenomena to the operation of natural laws, of laws originating in nature and executed by her power. And yet this spirit killing atheism—or, if the term sounds harshly, it may be called naturalism—will easily be seen to have been the inevitable consequence, the necessary ultimation of the theory already referred to, a theory which supposes that the Creator has given to the laws of nature a self propelling power, and that by virtue of the power thus conferred, are effected the various changes and operations that we behold in the natural world. The admission that nature possesses as an inherent principle, the power to produce even the lowest natural phenomenon, necessarily prepares the mind for referring all phenomena to the same cause. For though the
